Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance is a bit of an oddity in a series known for its tactical espionage action as it emphasizes high-speed action over stealth-based gameplay. Developed by Platinum Games, MGS:R borrows heavily from their other games such as Vanquish and as you control the cyborg ninja named Raiden and cut, cut, cut, and cut everything to tiny bits! Following up on their Snake. Kaiyodo released a Revoltech of Raiden as he appeared in Revengeance

Jack is back in Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance with a new custom cyborg body that he received after a nasty run in with Brazilian Samurai (and toothpaste model) Jetstream Sam. Raiden's employers at Maverick Security were able to give him a much more powerful form that is optimized for speed and power.The Revoltech figure stands about six inches tall and is quite gorgeous looking with its matte finish and clean sculpt. Raiden is made mostly out of hard PVC parts with some flexible bits in his waist. He feels quite sturdy.

Raiden is alright at standing up unassisted but can be a little tipsy due to having feet that aren't exactly flat on the bottom.

The sculpted details of his body are nicely done with all the artificial muscle fibers and Yoji Shinkawa style bolted plates flowing into each other.

As a Revoltech, Raiden possess a lot of articulation that is accomplished with Kaiyodo's trademark clicky joints. He has very smart joint placement that allows him to pose with all the agility befitting a cyborg ninja. Raiden's waist is made from a rubbery material that flexes around in order to help hide some of the gaps that open up as he moves.

Raiden comes with a good number of accessories for assisting him in cyborg ninja activities. You get three types of display bases, a plethora of hands, a pair of blank faces for holding his different eyeballs (yes really), a little tool for messing around with his eyeballs, his High Frequency Blade, his knife, the articulated scabbard for both weapons, his Augmented Reality visor, a Revocontainer for storing some of the accessories, and a watermelon.

All of Raiden's hands peg in at the wrist which allows them to rotate a full 360 degrees. Each hand also has an additional hinge for moving them either up and down or inward and outward depending on the hand. In addition to the fists, you get a pair of sword holding hands, two flat hands, two splayed hands, and one hand for holding the knife.

Out of the package Raiden comes with a blue eye installed in his head. Like with Snake, the eye is movable and gives Raiden a lot of personality.

Raiden's face can detach from the rest of his head to allow easy access to his eyeball. You get two flesh colored blank faces for the purpose of keeping the tiny eyeball pieces safe from falling into the carpet and getting forever lost.

I appreciate how Raiden's face has extra detailing showing his damaged right eye that is normally hidden under his bandanna. Oh did I call it a bandanna? I mean the highly advanced collection of tiny cameras woven into a flexible cloth! Thanks, Doktor!

Swapping Raiden's eyeballs is an odd affair as you have to place his face over one of the blank pieces and push the eye down through into the waiting socket of the other part. I'd recommend turning his eye so that you're pushing down on the white part rather than the colored iris.

To turn either eye you can use the included tool to hook into the small hole in the back of the eye or you can try to use your fingernail.

The effect of changing his eye color is quite dramatic as red-eyed Raiden gains even more intensity to his already frightening face. I must admit the small detail markings on his face are bit rougher than the rest of his body, but I find that his overall look is more than enough to make up for it. Raiden's eye flashes red in the game when he does something especially badass so for most of the review I have him set up with that eyeball.

Push up on the D-pad to switch to AR mode.

After removing both of the two panels on either side of Raiden's head and the front part of his hair, you can peg in his Augmented Reality visor. It has a nice faded red edge to it that mimics the way a red light sweeps across the visor as it allows Raiden to see enemies behind objects and look pretty badass at the same time.

Raiden's signature high-tech scabbard is mounted on an articulated arm that uses several double Revoltech joints to allow it to maneuver around.

Both the HF Blade and the knife slide snugly into their sheaths. It's only tight around the base of each blade so there shouldn't be any paint scraping.

All of the joints on the scabbard allow Raiden to pose as if he was drawing the blade from its sheath. The hands for holding the blade grip the handle tightly and you may need to carefully work them over the sword grip when you get the figure. After doing it a few times the hands will slide on and off the handle a lot easier.

With his High Frequency Blade in hand, Raiden is an amazing figure. He carries an air of finely sharpened menace as is befitting a cyborg ninja.

His signature HF Blade is a simple weapon that is highlighted by silver paint along the cutting edge.

"Mission Complete."

Raiden is very smartly designed as a Revoltech and can achieve just about every notable pose from the game.

Despite this figure's emphasis on dynamic action, Raiden is still quite capable of subtle poses. The movable eye really gives Raiden a lot of character.

The hand that grips the sword can tilt up or down and allows Raiden to hold his blade full out to the side.

"My sword is a tool of justice!"

His splayed hands are sculpted in such a way that it makes Raiden look just a little more frightening. Everything just comes together so well on this Revoltech.

I absolutely love the way this figure turned out. Raiden looks quite amazing now matter how you pose him.

His bare, sinewy form exudes speed and power.

Raiden's ability to draw his blade out of the sheath really adds an extra layer of coolness.

Pairing a character from a very kinetic action game with the stylized sculpt of a Revoltech is like a match made in outer heaven.

Raiden also has that dinky little knife that I think he only used once during the course of the game. It looks cool enough, but when your primary weapon is a sword designed to cut through just about anything, it's a wonder the knife ever got used at all.

I seem to recall all he ever did with it was throw it at an unreasonable US senator out of frustration.

If you need to give Raiden a little more stability, he comes with the "third leg" accessory that a lot of recent Revoltechs are packaged with. The main difference here is Raiden lacks a traditional peg hole for attaching a stand so he instead has this adapter piece that slides loosely over the base of the scabbard. This is probably the weakest aspect of the whole set as the adapter isn't as secure as it should be so you need to be careful when doing some more extreme poses with any of the display bases that use an armature. Thanks to my VR training, I did most of this review without the need for extra support.

The adapter also lets you use the included standard Revoltech stand.

This lets Raiden leap around like a high powered killing machine.

You also get the now standard extension part so Raiden can jump even higher. Again the somewhat loose connection between the stand adapter and Raiden means you probably won't want to display his like this for any extended period of time lest he get bumped off the armature. It is possible to beef up the adapter with a little nail polish or floor polish inside the grips.

Raiden also comes with yet another variation of the action stamp accessory that gives him a bit more stability while also looking cool (in theory). Despite not really liking these things on other Revoltechs, I have to admit casting it in clear plastic and giving it a blue faded paint app has made me warm up to it.

Back in Metal Gear Solid 4 cyborg Raiden showed off his ability to wield his sword with only his feet. In Rising some of his combos end with him slicing up foes with the HF Blade gripped firmly in his foot. To replicate this the Revoltech comes with a clear sword holding piece that plugs into the bottom of Raiden's heels. If you attach Raiden to one of the display bases he can do a good job of sword kicking some fools. Just remember to push the adapter in all the way so it doesn't flop around.

RAIDEN KICK!

Like with Snake, Raiden comes with an in-scale cardboard box. It comes printed on a single sheet of cardboard and has to be assembled with a little tape or glue.

Hold L1 for Blade Mode!

A major gimmick of Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance is Raiden's ability to cut almost every enemy and object into tiny bits with extreme precision. Jack's going to lend a hand in putting the box together!

With the box complete, Raiden can now utilize it in the very same way his hero Solid Snake does on infiltration missions. Every Metal Gear fan knows the true value of a cardboard box!

The box itself has some nice printed details like a "Platinum Express" logo that serves as a nod to the game's developer and a cool bar code with additional tiny text that also has the company name.

It's just another day at the office in the Metal Gear universe.

"Hey Snake!"

"Raiden! How's the family?"

"We're doing fine! Little John's going to his first soccer game after I get off work!"

Speaking of Snake (well, Big Boss circa 1974), the two figures look pretty good together. I hope we get some more Revoltechs of Metal Gear characters in the future.

METAL GEAR SOLID: SNAKE ERASER REVENGEANCE

"Big Boss! If I kill you now... then I'll get to take back the Main Character chair from Solid Snake!"

"...!!!"

Raiden's final accessory is a delicious watermelon! As a nod to the Japanese fans, there's often watermelons scattered about each stage that you can cut with Raiden's sword. I see anime characters do that all the time when they're at the beach so it must be a real thing.

The watermelon can be split into two pieces and even has little seeds painted on its red interior.

From his initial debut as a young covert operative in Metal Gear Solid 2 to his eventual transformation into a cyborg ninja, Raiden has learned to endure a lot of criticism by the western fanbase who were initially quite hostile to him.

Some people still hound him to this day.

"JACK! JAAAAAAAAACK! I'M PREGNANT!"

"C'MON JACK! LET'S TALK ABOUT YOUR FEELINGS!"

"JACK! KING KONG CLIMBED UP THE CHRYSLER BUILDING!"

"MORE LIKE GAYDEN AMIRITE?! LOLOLOLOLOLOL!"

"HAHAHA! MORE LIKE METAL GEAR SOLID 2: SONS OF SUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU-"

ENOUGH!

"Your memes... END HERE!"

I am lightning! Rain transformed!

The Revoltech figure of Raiden is absolutely fantastic and I am extremely happy to own him. Everything about it just perfectly captures the look and feel of the character as he appears in Revengeance and emphasizes all the great things about Revoltechs with its sleek sculpt and dynamic posing ability. Fans of Metal Gear or just fans of cool action figures in general should definitely pick him up.